Prius won’t run

Hi Amandia and welcome to Prius Chat.

The only thing we can tell you for certain is that these light tell you their respective electronic control units (ECUs) have at least one code to detail a problem or problems they are seeing.

We get this reported a lot and it just means the code reader you are using is a basic one not capable of reading all the car's ECUs. We know there are codes in those ECUs because the lights in your pictures tell us that.

Again we also get that reported here a lot but all that is happening when you cut the power to the ECUs (by disconnecting the 12 V battery) you reset everything including the diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs), so now you do not know what DTCs you had and worse you are starting from scratch while the car does all its diagnostic routines to reset the codes. You can see this happening when you look at your timeline.

My advice for you and your dad is to find a code reader or a service place that can read all of the Prius's 11-14 ECUs and report those codes here. We can then help you with some solid advice on how to proceed.

As far as places that can do code reading, auto parts places offer to do this for free (in the hopes they can sell you parts) but we find reported here that some places have good readers and some only have basic ones that only read the engine management computer (ECM) and maybe the ABS and TPMS ECUs. You need to keep trying places until you find one that reads the hybrid vehicle (HV) ECU, battery ECU, and electronically controlled brake (ECB) system ECU as a minimum.

All the best.

BTW and FYI, as you are a new member with less than 5 forum posts, your next few posts will be moderated and so will not be seen by any other member until the moderator approves them This is a real inconvenience, but came out of the forum being spammed by net bots.

 

Hi Amandia,

Do you want to just use your car, faults and all (as I do)?

Or do you want to be able to self diagnose the codes and either contract for repairs or do them yourself?

 

Regarding failing tire pressure sensors: keep in mind they’re not crucial. Well unless your location has periodic inspection and the failure means they pull you off the road.

You can “let it slide”, either till you’re replacing tires, or forever. It does mean you’ve lost that instant alert of pressure loss, and you should check pressures more diligently.

 

236,000 miles?
That's quite a run.

Have your dad check out the 12v battery, teaching you how to as well.
How to Check a Car Battery | Load Testing - Step-by-Step Guide
You got the car used and depending on what part of Florida you're in there might have been an aftermarket car alarm or remote start installed that is drawing down your 12v battery - which is pretty famous in G2s for causing intermittent codes.
Also, if you park your car outside, make sure there's not a mouse hanging out under your car chewing on the wires.
Toyota uses soy-based wire insulation.....which, for a mouse is the same thing as making them out of Doritos.
Get a video on replacing your cabin air filter.
It almost certainly needs it anyway(pine pollen,) the filters are cheap and the cabin air filter box is often where mouses wind up.

The tire pressure sensor can wait until you replace them, although you may want to take a quick glance at your tires every now and them.

They're about $50 and you have to remove the tire from the wheel to get at the pressure sensor.
You may want to have all of the sensors replaced at the same time the next time you buy tires, since they all tend to last about the same amount of time and the onsey-twosey replacement can be more expensive.

Also....this is a REALLY good time to check your spare tire and jack, since your pressure sensor (They call them TPMS's) might have been 'slimed' by a can of fix-a-flat - meaning that one of your tires might be a little dodgy.

So...
There probably really IS something going on with the brakes that might require you to find an independent mechanic to look at them, or maybe your dad if he's ever worked on brakes.
The G2 (your car is a Generation 2 Prius which were mane from 2004-2009) Prius has rear drum brakes, and they need to be checked for corrosion periodically, and if your brake fluid is the color of a boomer's cup of coffee (black and bitter, not "cookie in a cup" blonde and sweet) then it might be time to replace the brake fluid.

Sometimes a good brake shop can do all of this for a fair price, or an independent mechanic.
Priuses have been around for over 20 years now and there are a lot of them in South Florida...for the same reason that there are a lot of PEOPLE in Florida.
So...getting the brakes worked on should not be that big a deal.

If you and your day want to spend some quality time together, you can review some of the vids on inspecting the brake system and look at them together.
If that's not your thing....find a good, local independent mechanic to start looking at these things.

Good Luck!

 

The big red triangle, known as the "master warning light", probably indicates an issue being reported by the hybrid powertrain controls. You don't want to just guess what the issue might be; there are too many possibilities. As dolj advised, it is best (and not just "best" but pretty much the only sensible path) to get the diagnostic codes read, using equipment that can retrieve them, from the computers in the car that have set those codes. A code reader that can't see the codes just isn't the right tool for that job.

When you see such a combination of lights including the brake/ABS/traction lights, "I know they have something to do with my breaks" isn't necessarily on target. The reason is that the hybrid powertrain controller talks to the brake controller, and says "hey, I've got an issue here, don't count on me to coordinate regeneration with braking", and the brake controller effectively says "got it, I'm taking full responsibility for braking" and it sets two trouble codes of its own and turns on the brake/ABS/traction lights. The underlying reason is still whatever the powertrain controller was reporting.

So as dolj suggested, finding out what the trouble codes are will be the next step that covers the most distance toward figuring out what the issues are.

There is a way to get the brake controller's trouble codes without any special scan tool, just using a bit of wire and counting some light blinks. That could be interesting, though what I'm predicting is that the brake codes will turn out to be the ones that are set in response to an issue somewhere else. (I could be wrong; happens sometimes.)

Regrettably, the blink-code trick isn't available to get the codes from the somewhere else. A scan tool is needed for those.

 

Keep it simple.
Was the new battery fully charged before being installed ?
Do you have a way to check the charging voltage once you get the car running ?

Beyond that, you will probably need the services of a dealership service department.
And for a car of that age and mileage, the news likely won't be good.

 

Thanks for that.

The "fortune cookie" descriptions (as we call them [©ChapmanF]) are a bit inaccurate for some of those codes*, suffice it to say that the important one is the P0AA6. (*While the battery could certainly be suspect for the C1241, it by no means is the go-to solution and could waste $200+ without helping fix anything. By all means, check the 12 V battery and charge it or replace it if testing shows that that is required. Even though replacement is not likely as you have a new battery in there, you could have a dud.)

Are you able to click on the current P0AA6 code to get more information? In particular, we are looking for the additional 61x detail (or INF) code in addition to the 526 detail code.

The C1310 and C1259 are examples of the codes ChapmanF talked about here in post #7:

 

More than just examples, they're the exact two codes I meant.

 

HELLO AMANDIA AND THE FELLOW COMMUNITY. I AM NEW AS WELL AND IVE HAD MY 2008 PRIUS SINCE MAY AND IT HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT WONDERFUL TO ME. BUT TODAY I GOT THE ALMOST ALL THE LIGHTS ON MY DASH COME ON AND I WAS AT THE DRIVE THRU LINE, i HAD JUST ORDERED MY FOOD AND HAD TO CANCEL. I ALSO JUST REPLACED MY REGULAR 12V BATTERY LESS THAN A MONTH AGO. MY CAR DOESNT WANT TO DRIVE OR REVERSE ALTHOUGH IT TURNS ON. ALSO NO CODES POP UP ON THE READER, WHICH I FIND ODD. MY GUESSES IS THAT ITS THE HYBRID BATTERY. IF YOU OR ANYONE HAS EVER EXPERIENCED THE SAME ISSUE AND FIXED IT PLEASE LET ME KNOW I REALLY DONT WANT TO HAVE TO SPEND ANY EXTRA MONEY THAT I DONT HAVE TO TO GET THIS FIXED.

 

Before you panic, get the 12 V battery and it's charging voltage and it's main cable connections checked.
Sometimes new batteries are not fully charged and the car won't make up for that.
Sometimes even new ones are bad.
You may have to spend a little money to get a "diagnostic" done at a Toyota shop.

 

First, nice job trying to do as much of this on your own as possible. Getting involved in the maintenance and repairs of your car seems to be a lost art these days. I'd try to find an independent mechanic who knows Prius' really well. Check for Yelp ratings and things like that. I've got a local one who can hook up my car and show me the complete breakdown of all codes and the general health of every component. It's really helpful.
Good luck and I hope you get it fixed and back on the road quickly.

 

How many miles on the car?

you have a hybrid battery ground fault which means the hybrid battery the big expensive one in the back has failed. Very very common issue.
Hundreds of posts about this on this site.

your choices are getting the hybrid battery “rebuilt ” Which is a fairly temporary measure or buy a new one.

Main reasons people sell there G2 Prius are the engine eats a lot of oil due to poor maintenance or the hybrid battery is failing. Most of the time it’s both.

It’s imperative you start regularly checking the engine oil and when it gets below the full line top it backup.

Do you watch the hybrid battery charging behavior on the mfd the screen above the
Radio? You will now. If you had you would have noticed how poorly the battery is acting going to purple real fast and not charging back up to blue quickly and poor gas mileage and giving you a little warning there is hybrid battery storm clouds in your future.

use the search forum link up top and search

hybrid battery

and start reading. There will be hundreds of posts. Like it or not your about to become a battery expert. It’s a real pain in the you know what.

How much $$$ do you have into this car?

 

H᠎i,

If you read through this thread starting with Amandia's first post, you can see the history of the way things got sorted out:

1. She posted about having lights and a reader that showed no codes, and started guessing what the issue might be
2. We explained that she needed to get a reader that would work and show the codes, and then see what the issue was rather than guessing
3. She got a code reader that worked and posted what her codes were
4. Then we knew what her issue was.

You are pretty much at step 1 in that sequence, and the next steps for you are the same as they were for Amandia.

If you turn out to have the same codes as Amandia, then that will mean (as Ed suggested) the issue is the same too. The working code reader will show whether that's the case or not.

 

You might need a new hybrid battery...

 

...AND a new keyboard, perhaps with a working Caps Lock key.

 

You would be shouting too if you had a bad hybrid battery.

Gotta wonder what happened to the op July feels like millions of years ago